Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) has hit the mother lode again with gold hits of up to 189g/t gold from drilling at Paulsens’ Voyager 1 high-grade extension zone in Western Australia.
The high-grade extension zone has a resource grade of 25g/t gold compared with Paulsens' Voyager 1 historical mined grade of 8g/t gold.
The results are significant because they come from the high-grade extension zone at Paulsens, which is at the heart of Northern Star's key performance forecasts for CY2013.
Significant results from Voyager 1 include (uncut):
- 4.4m at 42.4 g/t gold (true width 2.1m) 482mRL UZ2 including 0.7m at 189.0 g/t
- 6.9m at 25.3 g/t gold (true width 5.2m) 584mRL UZ including 1.0m at 151.6 g/t
- 2.2m at 83.8 g/t gold (true width 1.2m) 537mRL UZ
The high-grade extension zone is part of the Voyager 1 lode, which is currently the main ore source at Paulsens and has produced 175,000 ounces over the past two years.
The lode continues to be open down plunge and the company believes this lode will continue to grow and be the mainstay for production for a number of years.
The high-grade extension zone formed the major part of Northern Star's recently released resource upgrade on the Paulsens Project to 403,000 ounces.
All these latest drilling results from Voyager 1 are excluded from the new resource estimate of 403,000 ounces.
The increase in head grade will underpin a rise in production to as much as 115,000 ounces in CY2013, lowering costs and resulting in surplus cash generation of $65-$85 million next calendar year.
With current gold prices running $150/oz higher than that used to calculate the CY2013 guidance, there is also significant scope to further grow the Company's cashflow prediction.
The high grade extension zone is central Northern Star’s CY2013 strategy for increases in grade, production and cashflow.
Northern Star said that mine and processing upgrade is on track. This will see Paulsens’ production rise from ~80,000 ounces per annum to 100,000-115,000 ounces per annum in CY2013.